Canada
by CorrieFan8081
Summary: Sometimes home is somewhere you least expect it to be.


She smiled happily as she buttered the toast, watching the winter snow trickle from the sky as she heard her family waking upstairs. Leanne sunk her teeth into the comfort that reminded her of home, well, Manchester home, and chewed the buttered delight. She watched the snow fall elegantly in her large back garden, landing on the swing set and the duck-egg blue wendy house she and Nick had built for the kids. It was then that she thought about her life and how she had gone from Manchester to Canada.

It had been sixteen years since her and Nick left Weatherfield for a new life in Canada. They were still in their youth, blissfully unaware of what life away from family meant and what it meant with their own family on the way too. She had her reservations about the place when they landed on that Sunday morning after a nine hour flight to find snow and heaps and heaps of it lining the streets. She wasn't sold on the place at first, but her mind soon changed once she got herself a job in a restaurant an elderly lady named Annette owned. Nick got a job for a computing firm, organising the business and turning it around in less than six months. But those six months also brought something else. A son, one that they considered getting rid of, but decided not to in the end. They agreed all life was precious and after living without his father, Nick decided at the tender of age of eighteen he couldn't lose his wife or the chance to be a dad.

So, baby Andrew Brian Tilsley came along on November 22nd 1999, weighing in at a healthy 7lbs and 3oz and being the tiny bundle of joy is parents once saw as a burden. They lived in a tiny flat on a busy street, much like the one they had met on and eventually fallen in love on. But they had each other and things were on the up for the family of three, despite the lack of money, family and help for the new parents.

By 2000, the money was coming in dribs and drabs and it seemed the Canada dream was fading. Baby Andrew was now being cared for by his Mummy as it was too expensive for childcare and then work slowed down for Nick too. And just as they prepared to pack up their life in Canada and head home to Manchester, things turned up again. Annette gave Nick and Leanne just what they needed, and was a surrogate granny to baby Andrew, babysitting and giving him everything his family in the UK were missing out on. Gail visited as often as she could and once she brought Sarah-Lou's daughter Bethany to see her cousin. It was hard to be so isolated from everyone else, but Canada offered them everything Weatherfield couldn't. Normality. Stability. Happiness.

Leanne was brought back to reality as her youngest began to cry from upstairs, the loud wailing sound of the three week old baby girl filling the house. She crept up the stairs in the hope of not waking her other two children and entered baby Isabella's room.

Scooping the tiny baby in her arms, Leanne held her only daughter close, rocking her gently. "Sssh." She whispered. "Mummy's here."

The baby closed her hazel eyes slowly, drifting off to sleep again as the house returned to its peaceful state.

Life had been on the up for the little clan, Annette gave Leanne her job back, pushing her to the forefront of her restaurant and encouraging her to manage it whilst she took care of little Andrew. Nick's work picked up and he was soon invited to work for a bigger company, earning double what he had before. He took the job without even thinking twice. He was now twenty-one with a three year old son, running one of the most successful computing businesses in the world. But it came with a price. There were the constant hours away from his wife and little boy, working away all the time and barely seeing his family. It was at that point Leanne decided enough was enough and she told Annette it was time to end her marriage. Her dear friend persuaded her not to divorce Nick and go home to England by giving her the greatest advice Leanne had ever heard.

 _"No relationship is all sunshine, but two people can share one umbrella and survive the storm together."_

She took the advice on board and headed home to her husband, declaring that she didn't want them to split up but they needed to make more time for each other and that family had to come first...they were all they really had.

Another year had flown by and things were still booming. Little Andrew had started at school and Annette had retired from her job at her restaurant, leaving Leanne in charge of it all, and the restaurant in her will should anything ever happen to her.

Nick could manage his work better, getting less stressed and angry; spending far more time with his family, going on weekend walks, summer holidays and being the goalie whenever he played football with Andrew.

It was one summer night when they were in Portugal on holiday they decided they were ready for another child. As the sun set and the gleaming swimming pool illuminated the night and their son had gone to sleep, they talked and admitted that another baby would complete the perfect family they had.

The first child was accidental and unplanned, but the second took an age to come along. After two whole years of trying and getting nothing they gave up all hope of welcoming another baby. And after a few too many glasses of champagne at Nick's 25th birthday do, Leanne found herself pregnant again, almost seven years after the last time. Andrew was nervous at first, terrified by the idea of no longer being the centre of his parents world however he soon adjusted, becoming the best big brother ever.

Samuel Nicholas Tilsley was born on the 12th August 2006, a full month earlier than he was expected. He was born in Manchester surprisingly, as the ever-growing family paid a visit to their families in England. He was healthy though and it took some time to get prepared to go back to Canada again after the birth. It felt like home for them and Leanne even considered staying, pleading with Nick that both their families would be around if they stayed. He said he would think about it and ask her if she felt the same way when they returned home again. She never even mentioned it, life returning to normal as usual. Canada was always going to be home. _Always._

One year soon turned to two and before they knew it, their youngest was walking and talking, trying to be like his big brother. Things had never been so good, until they all turned a little sour.

Annette couldn't do what she had done before. Her legs were giving up on her and when Leanne was working, she received a phone call from Andrew that she had collapsed on the floor and he couldn't wake her. She rushed home and Nick got the first flight back from New York as he'd been away on a business trip.

It was later that the doctors confirmed Annette had terminal cancer and had no family left to care for her. Leanne argued the toss with the doctor; she may not have been Canadian, related to Annette or even have enough free time to care for the elderly woman but she made sure she did.

Nick had made his first million and gave Leanne enough to get Annette the best heath care Canada could offer her in the last year of her life. The doctors said Annette was getting so much better but not well enough to be cured from the cancer. And when the Tilsley family came to visit her in hospital, she pleaded with Leanne to take a break from running the restaurant, being a mother and a carer. She reluctantly agreed and the family jetted off to LA for a week.

It was on a Saturday afternoon the doctor phoned Leanne to tell her Annette had died peacefully that very morning. It felt like the world had stopped for Leanne as her mother figure had passed away so quickly. She'd only seen her and spoken to her a few days earlier and it was hard to believe she had deteriorated so fast. Nick, Leanne, Andrew and Samuel flew home to Canada on the Sunday morning, grief stricken.

They buried Annette in a small yet beautiful ceremony in the little church she went to every Sunday. They sung, laughed and cried as they remembered the surrogate mother and grandmother that welcomed them to Canada. Annette was seventy seven and was so full of life and disease too.

Leanne found it difficult to adjust to working again in the restaurant her closest friend beside her husband had left her. But luckily for Leanne she had Nick and they managed to pull through the issues life chucked at them.

But 2010 through other problems their way. On a cold December evening, Nick got the phone call from his Mum to tell him Ashley had died. His best pal from when he had lived in Weatherfield had been caught up in some tram disaster that had flattened part of the street.

It was another gloomy flight as the family went to Weatherfield. The kids stayed at their Great-grandma Audrey's whilst their parents went to the second funeral of the year. Nick couldn't hold it together and he wished that he had never moved away from Ashley and all they knew at home in Manchester. But Leanne reminded him of all the good in Canada, the life they had and the family they had made there.

The next few years became a blur, the children blossoming and before they knew where they were, Nick had celebrated his 34th birthday. Leanne got a little bit drunk and admitted just how much she loved him as a baby and that she just wanted to hold him and Samuel like they were when they were babies. Babies they weren't though; Samuel was eight and Andrew was as good as sixteen.

And, although Leanne had pleaded for three years to have another baby, they agreed two was plenty. But mother nature disagreed.

In February, Leanne discovered she was expecting yet again and the last edition was born in September. A girl, finally.

Isabella Annette Tilsley was born on September 15th and completed the family unit; making home, home.

And that was what she settled on.

As she watched her children push each other in the snow and make Nick into a human snowman, she decided she completely disagreed with that old saying.

 _"There's no place like home."_

Her Dad had argued with her for weeks, months in fact, telling her England was where she belonged and Canada was a stupid idea. She couldn't disagree more. And whenever he rung and asked how things were she had the new motto in her head, the one the entire family followed.

 _"It takes hands to build a house, but only hearts can build a home."_

And that's what their rural home had. Five heart beats, lots of love and endless memories.

It was their home and there really was no place like Canada.

The end.

* * *

 **Hi!**

 **Fancied a change again from All Roads Lead To You, and I felt a little bad for those that were reading as Nick and Leanne seem to be getting a lot of doom and gloom. So I thought this would make up for it(for now) and it's an idea I've had for ages so yeah, here it is!**

 **Please review and just let me know what you think!**

 **Thank you! :-)**


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